


brat

by applecrumbledore



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: M/M, Smoking, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-12
Updated: 2015-05-13
Packaged: 2018-03-30 05:28:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3924577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/applecrumbledore/pseuds/applecrumbledore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tsukishima wasn’t sure how much of his “crush” on Coach Ukai was real and how much was because it was funny, or something to do. It wasn’t something he’d actively thought about when he first told the team, and then it quickly devolved into a joke, but he was never really <i>joking</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

i.

It was a warm, wet summer evening two weeks before finals and the boys were sitting in Tanaka’s basement surrounded by empty or mostly empty beer bottles. Hinata, Kageyama, Yamaguchi and Tsukishima would be going into third year in the fall, and Tanaka and Nishinoya would be graduating. They hadn’t invited the new first years because, as nice and capable as they were, fifteen was too young to start drinking. Somehow, sixteen and seventeen seemed much better.

Nishinoya was lying upside-down on the couch with his socked feet in the air and Tanaka lied on the floor in front of him. Hinata and Kageyama were sprawled on their sleeping bags arguing about who was going to have to go upstairs to get another beer for the other one and thus having to awkwardly face Tanaka’s parents—who didn’t mind that they were down here because at least they weren’t out prowling the streets, but they asked awkward questions—and Yamaguchi was throwing up in the bathroom, and Tsukishima was lying on the floor next to the wall, balancing a beer bottle on his chest, setting a volleyball up in the air over and over again. He was surrounded by a neat semi-circle of empty bottles and he’d had more to drink than anyone but, besides the colour showing high on his cheekbones, he seemed the least drunk. He always hung out with the team but he never talked much, unless it was to say something mean, and none of them knew if he actually liked them or not. It was a topic of frequent discussion.

“Tsukki, tell us who you like!” Tanaka looked at him upside-down and watched him set the ball to himself once, twice, _tmp, tmp_. Everyone had taken to calling him _Tsukki_ more to annoy him (and make fun of Yamaguchi) than anything, but then it became habit.

“No,” he said lightly, without malice. _Tmp,_ he set the ball and it came back down.

“Come on! Yu told us who _he_ likes!”

“Everyone in this _prefecture_ knows he likes Azumane-san.”

“Not true!” Noya yelped. “I didn’t say I _like_ him, I said—I just—I mean, we hang out on weekends—”

Hinata leaned into Kageyama’s back and said, _“Tsukkiii_ ,” tapping his beer bottle glassily against his teeth, “Tsukki doesn’t like anybody, he’s dead inside. Tsukki likes—himself. He likes himself like how Kageyama likes volleyball.”

_“Hey.”_

_Tmp, tmp_ , Tsukishima set the ball to himself in perfect little tosses. He tried to ignore the distant sound of Yamaguchi puking in the basement bathroom. He shifted his feet. He wasn’t sure what it was he liked about this person and frankly, he hadn’t let himself think about it, but maybe if he said something everyone would stop bothering him or, better, think he was joking.

“Ukai,” he said, when he didn’t think anyone was listening.

_“What?”_ Tanaka screeched; his parents thumped on the floor.

“Coach Ukai,” Tsukishima repeated, looking at no one. He set the ball again and it went into the air.

Noya flipped over wearing a grin as wide as his whole face.

“The old one or the _really_ old one?”

_“Fuck you!”_ Tsukishima snatched up his beer and shot upright, and the volleyball came down and hit him in the head to a chorus of loud, manic laughter.

“What do we even know about Coach Ukai? He’s so old!”

“He’s in his twenties. I don’t have to explain myself to you.”

“Tsukki, you’re what, sixteen?”

“So?”

“ _God_ , you’re weird.”

“Good luck with that, Tsukki. He’s never gonna go for it.”

“Hinata.” Kageyama grabbed both Hinata’s hands and looked him dead in the eyes, jaw set. “If I ever date a sixteen-year-old when I’m thirty, I want you to kill me.”

Hinata clutched his hands in return. “I promise I will.”

Tanaka laughed so hard he almost knocked himself out on the coffee table and Tsukishima whipped the volleyball at him so fast that the slap echoed through the house and Tanaka’s parents yelled down the stairs.

 

ii.

News so hilarious travelled around the team fast, and soon everyone sniggered at Tsukishima whenever he walked into the gym. Since Ukai obviously didn’t go to school with them, the others didn’t have much opportunity to embarrass Tsukishima around him, much to their displeasure. But their trips to Sakanoshita made up for that.

On the walk down the hill, Tanaka and Noya jammed their shoulders against his from either side as they walked.

“What do you like about him?”

“Yeah, Tsukki, what do you like about him so much?”

“Why do you two even care? You’re like children.”

“Because it’s funny and we like funny things.”

“You don’t like anybody, but you like the lazy old man who works at the convenience shop? It’s hilarious. I don’t get it.”

“I don’t need you to _get it_.”

“We want to get it! Tell us why you like him.”

He rolled his eyes as they approached Sakanoshita, despite the nervous knot in his gut. Ukai never made him nervous, but these idiots did.

“He’s ...” The words bubbled up. “I don’t know. Older, and good-looking, and—”

The shop doors parted to reveal Ukai behind the counter with his feet propped precariously on the top of the cash register, chair tipped on two legs, as he tried to hang a spoon off his nose.

“—mature,” Tsukishima finished, to peals of laughter. Noya slapped him on the back so hard the sound made Ukai jump, and the spoon fell to the floor. He threw his feet down and tipped the chair forward, glaring at the approaching team.

“Of course it’s _you guys_.”

“You’re our coach!” Hinata glared. “Aren’t you supposed to like us, at least?”

“I like you sometimes.” He plucked a box of matches off the counter and took a cigarette out from behind his ear. “Sometimes like on the court, and not when you want me to give you free food.”

“That’s when _we_ like you best.”

The team scattered through the store and Tsukishima watched Ukai strike a match on the side of the box and light his cigarette. His nails were dirty and he had a cut on the inside of his bottom lip that Tsukishima hadn’t noticed during practice yesterday. His hair looked clean.

He caught Tsukishima’s eye and said, “Can I help you?” dripping with sarcasm. Tsukishima scowled at him and slouched after Yamaguchi.

When the boys were done horsing around and had bought their snacks and were slowly leaving, Tsukishima hung back.

“Tsukki? You coming?”

“I’ll catch up.”

Yamaguchi looked between him and Ukai, now the only ones in the shop, but Tsukishima was too busy furiously examining the nutritional information on the back of a carton of iced tea to notice. Yamaguchi sighed.

“I’ll walk slow.”

Tsukishima grunted at him and he left. The electric door closed behind him and the silence seemed to ring; he heard Ukai’s sneakers on the floor, smelt his smoke. He flipped the iced tea idly between his hands and went up to the counter, then slid it towards Ukai with a 500 yen coin.

“Just this.”

“Don’t do that weird clerk-talk to me, we know each other,” Ukai scoffed. He let his cigarette stick to his lip as he talked and Tsukishima watched it move. This was as good a time as any.

“Do you want to go out sometime?” he asked, stone-faced.

Ukai almost choked. He shoved Tsukishima’s change into his waiting hand.

“What are you _talking_ about?”

“Do you want to go OUT sometime.”

“What do you mean _out_? Are you asking me on a fucking date?”

Tsukishima shrugged.

“That’s a yes or no answer, you brat!”

“Yes, then.”

Ukai couldn’t help but laugh. He tapped his cigarette in an ashtray and stood so there wasn’t quite as much height between them, but still, Tsukishima had about ten centimetres on him. Not that Ukai was jealous.

“You’re sixteen. You don’t know even know what ‘going out’ _means.”_

“I know plenty. Don’t be a jerk.”

“Nice way to talk to your coach!”

“Well, you _are_ a jerk.”

“And you’re asking me out.”

“Sure.”

“Do you have any idea how old I am?”

Tsukishima didn’t, not really. He also didn’t know his blood type or star sign, which mattered about as much. “Under thirty.”

_“Ugh_.” Ukai slouched. “I’m twenty-six. I thought you’d guess low.”

“You smoke. You look old.”

“And, again, you’re asking me out.” He squinted at him. “You’re a pretty fucked up kid. If you don’t mind me saying so.”

“That’s okay.”

“You know, it’s really _not_.” He stubbed his spent cigarette out and wandered to a messy stack of leaflets at the corner of the counter, busying his hands. “What makes you think I’m not straight?”

He missed Tsukishima looking him up and down. “You seem like the kind of guy to be to lazy to care.”

“Not— _exactly_ , but, point taken.” He huffed. “Something like that, anyways.”

They stood in silence for a few long, tense moments. Tsukishima pocketed his change.

“So?” he asked.

“So? Oh God, you think there’s actually something to be _answered_ here? You’re a fucking _kid! No!”_

“I don’t look like a kid.”

“I hate to break it to you but _yeah_ , you do.” He jabbed a finger at him before he could speak. “And if you’re about to say some shit like _you look like you like that_ , you’re off the fucking team. You’re lucky I don’t boot you for _this_.”

“Thanks,” Tsukishima said, dryly.

“You _should_ be thankful! You should be thankful I don’t tell your goddamn parents.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“That’s not the point. I’m ten years older than—we’re _not_ having this conversation.” He jammed the heels of his hands into his eyes. “If you let me stop talking about this right now, I’ll do you the favour of never bringing it up again.”

“Doesn’t matter.” Tsukishima stabbed the straw into his carton of tea. “It’s not like you would, anyways. Kind of inappropriate for an adult to tease a kid about something like this, isn’t it?”

“I wouldn’t te— _Christ,_ just get out of here!”

Tsukishima grinned at him, predatory and a little mean. “Are you nervous?”

“Go home, you freak!”

Tsukishima turned and waved. “See you at practice.”

“Don’t remind me.”

 

iii.

He hadn’t expected (or even really wanted) Ukai to go out with him, not then, but the opportunity to ask was too funny to pass up, and how jumpy Ukai got around him made it totally worth it. He even told the team what had happened because it was even funnier that way, and then they made fun of Ukai instead of him, which worked too. Not that they made fun of Ukai to his _face_ —both because it would be inappropriate, with him as their coach, and because if word got around and rumours got twisted, it could become another story entirely, which could get him fired. And put in jail. But he was fun to mess with: Tsukishima would come up behind him and clap a hand down on his shoulder and he’d jump a foot in the air, and once during a practice match, Tsukishima caught his eye and, without smiling, winked at him. Ukai almost charged onto the court.

 

iv.

They had practice on Valentine’s Day and Tsukishima caught Ukai before he left and shoved a pack of smokes into his hand.

Ukai stared at it. It was the same brand he always smoked.

“Did I drop these? Where’d you get ‘em?”

“They’re a gift.”

_“What?”_

“It’s Valentine’s Day.”

“You got me _cigarettes_ for _Valentine’s Day_.”

“Well, chocolates seemed stupid and what else was I supposed to get you, a volleyball? I don’t know anything else about you.”

Ukai stared at him blankly. “But you’re trying to _court me_.”

Tsukishima raised his eyebrows. “Is it working?”

He looked at the cigarettes in his palm, in the foil and everything. He must have gotten them from a vending machine. After a moment’s deliberation, he shoved them into his pocket.

“ _No._ You’re lucky I’m almost out.”

 

v.

At the end of third year, Karasuno made it to nationals and Tsukishima was still miraculously on the team and, even more miraculously, Ukai was still coaching them. For Tsukishima it had been a mix of apathy and having nothing better to do that kept him on the team, but no one knew why Ukai had stayed—the only plausible explanation was that he had grown to enjoy being a high school volleyball coach, which seemed absurd.

They were staying at a hotel in Tokyo; it was modest, but everything in Tokyo was exciting regardless. Hinata and Kageyama had taken the second years out for karaoke and God knew what else, and Tsukishima was grateful for the time alone. He didn’t _really_ consider the two of them his friends (but if they weren’t, who was?) and he tolerated them, but the intense training they’d done leading up to nationals meant he’d seen them way too much lately.

Tokyo seemed unimaginably huge and bustling compared to anything in Miyagi, but it was clean in most places, although their hotel was a dump, and the locals kept to themselves. Even better, the liquor store clerks there didn’t ID him and he managed to buy a fifth of whiskey for less than he’d ever pay at home.

In the room he was sharing with Yamaguchi, he poured the whiskey into a slightly-less-conspicuous water bottle—they still had another day of warm-up matches before league play, which he could handle hung over if it came to that—then slipped downstairs. The hotel had a pool inside a heated glass room on the side of the building, with white tiled floors and fake palm trees, and there was nothing he’d rather do than put his headphones on, get a little drunk and forget about the crushing pressure of the days to come.

He hadn’t realized that Ukai didn’t go with the others, either. He found him on one of the plastic lounge chairs in sweatpants and a tank top, smoking and reading something.

Tsukishima came up behind him.

“Are you reading Yotsuba?” he sniggered. Ukai jerked forward.

_“Christ_ , you’re quiet.” He folded the book across his leg. “And yes. Shut up. It’s charming.”

“I bet.”

Tsukishima sat in the chair next to his and stretched his legs out. He sat the bottle of whiskey between his knees and Ukai noticed.

“Tell me,” he said through his teeth, “that you are not blatantly drinking hard liquor, underage, in front of your coach, two nights before nationals.”

Tsukishima grinned and held the bottle out to him. “Not _alone.”_

First, Ukai looked appalled, and then thrilled, and then he doubled over and laughed so hard he spat his cigarette on the ground. His laughter echoed around the concrete and pool and glass enclosure over the lapping of the water. He rest his head against the rubber plastic slats of the pool chair and sighed angrily, then sat up. He had a red mark on his forehead and his headband had slipped back.

He snatched the bottle out of Tsukishima’s hand.

_“Fine_. If this is what it takes to shut you up, you got it. Let’s drink.” He unscrewed the cap and took a swig, then grimaced. “God, you fucking kids don’t know what to buy.”

“So come with me next time.”

_“Oi.”_

“Kidding.”

He handed it back to Tsukishima and fixed his headband as Tsukki drank.

“I get it.” He sighed. “I was kinda like you in third year. There’s all this pressure and everyone around you is just _so into sports_ , and mind you, I wasn’t even _good_ , so I’d come along for all this shit and just—” He motioned for the bottle, then drank. “—do stuff like this. You don’t even got an excuse, you can actually _play_.”

Tsukishima snorted. “Doesn’t mean I want to.”

“Brat. Don’t say stuff like that to your coach.”

“Like you don’t already know.”

“Still, show some enthusiasm.”

“This is me being enthusiastic.” He took a swig and coughed, and Ukai laughed at him.

“Gimme that, you amateur.”

 

They sat on their plastic pool chairs and passed the bottle back and forth, and Ukai told stories about when he was in high school and they talked about everything other than volleyball and ripped on each other and laughed and laughed and laughed. They pushed their chairs together so they could both read Yotsuba and Tsukishima secretly enjoyed it, and he played music through his headphones and Ukai didn’t even tell him it was stupid.

When the bottle was almost done, Ukai sat back and sprawled out on his chair, covering his eyes with his hands.

“I can’t believe I’m hanging out with you. I can’t believe you’re getting drunk before nationals. _I’m_ not playing.”

“It’s not like it’s tomorrow.”

Ukai blew a raspberry and Tsukishima laughed. He slid his hands into his hair and pushed his headband off; it was the first time Tsukishima had seen him without it, and he stared. His hair flopped over to one side, thick and coarse and glossy, a little fried from being bleached, and longer than it looked when it was pushed back. He hadn’t dyed it in a while and a couple inches of dark roots showed. He hadn’t aged considerably in the time since they’d met, or if he did, Tsukishima didn’t notice. He had high cheekbones and a straight nose and a strong jaw.

It had been so long that he wasn’t sure how much of his “crush” on Ukai was real and how much was because it was funny, or something to do. It wasn’t something he’d actively thought about when he first told the team, and then it quickly devolved into a joke, but he was never really _joking_.

Ukai caught him staring as he swept his hair up and slid his headband back on.

“You’re not still faking that _crush_ bullshit, are you?”

“Who’s faking?”

“So, yes, then.”

“I swear to God I’m not.”

Their eyes met for a few too-intense seconds and neither one remembered being this drunk a couple minutes ago.

“I wish you were.” Ukai shook his head, but he was smiling. “You are the weirdest fucking kid.”

“You thought I was joking this whole time?”

“The whole _team_ was joking, I heard them snickering like school girls. You guys got a weird sense of humour.”

“That’s them, not me.” He swung his legs up and stretched and looked at his feet next to Ukai’s; his were a little bigger, less hairy. “Have you ever seen me put effort into anything, ever? Why would the _one_ thing I do be about pissing you off?”

Ukai went quiet then, which was either a good sign or a really bad one. He fumbled for his smokes in his pocket and lit one, then stuck the spent match into the top of the heaping ashtray next to him like a flag on a mountaintop.

Tsukishima turned his head and looked at him. He had his eyes closed.

“Do you have a girlfriend?”

Ukai almost inhaled his cigarette laughing. “You think to ask that now?”

“Boyfriend?”

“Neither.”

“Did you ever?”

“Nothing serious. Would that have mattered? I should have lied years ago.”

“No.”

“Damn.”

They were quiet for a while longer. Tsukishima tried to steal a smoke without Ukai noticing, but he slapped his hand away, and the room wasn’t spinning but he was thrumming with that warm, deep-boned pleasantness that made everything soft-edged and sweet and funny. It was a weird kind of vulnerability, but he liked it. And he liked the idea of being able to drink enough to keep up with Ukai.

Their chairs were still pushed together. The room was warm and he could feel the heat radiating off Ukai’s arm next to his, or he thought he could. He always assumed that was something people imagined.

“Uh, forgive me for being brash,” Ukai joked, turning his head to look at Tsukishima, “but you don’t exactly seem _love struck_.”

His eyes were focused but his pupils were blown in the low light and drunkenness. From this close he could see the dark smudges under his eyes, the fine lines; he wasn’t pretty, per se, but there was something so honest and dumb and visceral about him that had always seemed endearing. So Tsukishima accidentally told the truth.

“It doesn’t feel like being love struck. It feels like—if it’s just this, getting drunk and reading comics and listening to music, except we fuck and stuff, that’s all I’d want, anyways.”

Ukai raised his eyebrows so high they threatened to leap off his face and Tsukishima felt, only distantly, embarrassed. They kept looking at each other for one second, two, three, and then Ukai squeezed his eyes shut, breathed out, and sat up. He pushed the almost-empty bottle off Tsukishima’s lap.

“That’s more than enough for you.”

“I would’ve said it sober.”

“Are you an idiot? I’m trying to help you be _cool_ about this.”

Tsukishima laughed and Ukai couldn’t remember if he’d ever gotten a non-derisive laugh out of him before tonight.

“Don’t. I’m ... comfortable. Being not-love-struck.”

“Of course you are,” Ukai sneered. “Damn, when I was your age I had a new crush every _week_. How are you doing this?”

“Beats me.” He sat up and rubbed his hair where it had gone flat from lying down. At his feet, music poured softly out of his headphones. When he spoke, he spoke to his bare feet. “I’ll be eighteen soon.”

Without warning, Ukai smacked him in the back of the head.

“Have some fucking shame!”

Tsukishima laughed again. “What, is ‘legal’ not old enough?”

“It’s not _about_ —guh.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Eighteen and twenty-nine are the same amount of years apart as seventeen and twenty-eight.”

“At least you won’t go to jail.”

_“Shh!_ Christ, you’ve got a one-track mind.” He looked nervously at the glass door to the lobby. “You’re gonna get me fired.”

“You haven’t done anything.”

“I’m not _gonna_. Listen.” He pulled their chairs apart and put his feet on the tiled floor between them. “You’re lucky this is me. If you’d tried to pull this shit on Takeda-san, he’d probably report you so fucking fast for your ‘own good’—”

“I don’t like Takeda-sensei.” Tsukishima swung his feet over the side of the chair and planted them on the heated tile floor; the chairs were so low his knees were raised. “I like _you_.”

He was close enough to smell the cigarettes and whiskey on Ukai’s breath and drank in his surprise and his open mouth, just wide enough in shock to see the glint of his teeth.

And then Ukai punched him in the chest.

His chair squeaked backwards on the tile and he burst out laughing, clutching his shirt. Ukai stood up and kicked the chair away for further measure.

“You’re a fucking psychopath,” he spat, but he didn’t sound mad. His ears were red.

“Yeah, yeah.” Tsukishima gathered his headphones and phone up and stood, stretching. “I’m done.”

Ukai said nothing. Tsukishima cracked his knuckles and picked up his water bottle and peered around the pool chairs to make sure he hadn’t forgotten anything. When he looked back up, Ukai was looking at him.

“What?”

He cleared his throat. “Do you have a pen?”

“Why would I bring a pen to a pool.”

“C’mere.”

He tucked his book under his arm and headed for the lobby and Tsukishima followed, shuddering at the cold hotel air after the heat of the pool. He wobbled a little uncertainly, drunkenness making his head rush.

The front desk was empty. Ukai looked both ways, then hunched over it for a moment. There was a ripping sound. He spun around and glared up at Tsukishima.

“Here.”

He shoved a scrap of paper into Tsukishima’s hand. He unfolded it. Written in an almost illegible scrawl was _KEISHIN 264-24-8312._

“Look me up in five years,” he grumbled, staring at a potted fern by Tsukishima’s hip like it was the most interesting thing in the world. When he looked up and saw Tsukishima’s shit-eating smirk, he barked, “And _try_ not to look so fucking smug.”

“Can’t.”

“You’ll forget.”

“Are you counting on that?”

“Yes. _Five_ years. If it’s before, I’m blocking your number.”

“Make it one year.”

“Four.”

“Two.”

“ _Three_.”

“Two. I’ll be twenty. Ish.”

Ukai grimaced, more at himself than anything.

“Two _plus_. Two and change.”

“Deal.”

Tsukishima decided against shaking his hand over such a weird, uncomfortable thing. He couldn’t stop smirking.

“Would you quit that?” Ukai griped. “You look like a fucking asshole. Fuck, you’re just gonna tell your friends, and the school’s gonna hang me by my balls—you know what, give that back.”

“Nope.” Tsukishima held the scrap of paper above his head to add insult to injury, and Ukai didn’t even try to reach for it.

“Fucking brat.”

“You love it.”

“Go to your damn room. You’re running extra laps tomorrow. I hope you’re hung over.”

“I hope _you_ are.”

As if on cue, the rest of the team burst noisily through the lobby doors, a bunch of fifteen and sixteen year olds hopped up on Pepsi and chips. Kageyama, Hinata and Yamaguchi followed up the rear with Takeda. Ukai glared at Tsukishima and drew a finger across his throat. Tsukishima chuckled.

In the elevator, he stood behind Ukai, who wasn’t quite short enough for him to put his chin on his head.

Hinata leaned into his side.

“Were you two the only ones here? Did anything _happen?”_ he asked in a sing-song voice.

Tsukishima bit the inside of his cheek to keep from smirking and crinkled the scrap of hotel memo pad in his pocket.

“Nope.”

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wrote a final time-skip chapter cause someone in the comments suggested it!! thanks, someone! 
> 
> tsukki is so fun to write. i don't always like how people write him, or ukai, so this was neat. bye forever

vi.

The Karasuno boys volleyball team came fourth in nationals and Tsukishima graduated high school with honours and, with the help of some sterling letters of recommendation, he got into a small but reputable public university in Tokyo. He studied civil engineering and lived in a one-room apartment off campus—he couldn’t stand the thought of having a dormitory with a roommate—where he kept the scrap of hotel memo pad with Ukai’s phone number tacked to a cork board above his desk next to photos of the Karasuno team during his first, second and third years with them.

He was nearly twenty-one by the time he contacted Ukai again. He still spoke to Tanaka, Noya, Daichi and even Hinata once in a while, and they gave him brief updates—yes, he still works at Sakanoshita, no, he’s not coaching volleyball anymore, no, he hasn’t asked about you—whether he wanted them or not. He’d had a couple short relationships during his time in university so far, either explosive and hostile or mild and boring, and that had staved off his Ukai-related curiousity for a while, but it always came back. Would he come all the way to Tokyo to see him? Was he worth going back to Miyagi for? He wouldn’t know unless he called.

He untacked the number from his cork board. The scrap of paper had gotten old and yellowed and it made him wonder what Ukai would look like now. It had been about three years since he’d last seen him, not since before he moved away. He would be over thirty now, not that that was very old. But he wondered.

He spun around in his desk chair and tapped the number into his phone and waited with it to his ear, wondering if he shouldn’t feel more nervous. Ukai might not even remember him—he was one kid out of dozens that he coached over the years, and he was far from the most talented or most interesting, but maybe having a crush on him was enough. He didn’t care much either way, but what a waste of time all that would have been.

Someone picked up on the third ring.

“Hello?”

“Hey. Is this Ukai Keishin?”

“Yeah, who’s this?”

“Tsukishima Kei.”

There was silence over the staticky line. Then Ukai started to laugh.

“I don’t fuckin’ believe this. You kept my number.”

“Tacked right on my wall.”

“You don’t say.” His voice didn’t sound so different. At least smoking hadn’t driven him to speak through a hole in his throat.

Tsukishima had never been good at small talk, and he liked that Ukai didn’t seem particularly interested in trying to force it.

“Want to go for a drink sometime?”

“You don’t live here anymore, do you?”

“Nope. Tokyo.”

“Hm.” Something shuffled on Ukai’s end and Tsukishima wondered here he was. “Well, no sense in pretending now. I’m due for a trip. When’re you free?”

 

He made time to visit for a night the following week. Tsukishima didn’t offer him a place to stay, and he didn’t ask. They agreed to meet at a small bar in Tsukishima’s favourite neighbourhood in the evening, no pretenses about it _not_ being a date, and Tsukishima prayed they had more to talk about than volleyball. He didn’t even play anymore.

He was held up after class and rushed home to shower, then showed up late. He stepped into the bar, surprisingly packed with people, and slid his headphones off his ears. He didn’t know what he was supposed to wear and was appalled that he had even thought about it.

Tsukishima was a head taller than most people in the bar, and spotting Ukai was easy because he still bleached his hair. He sat stiffly at the bar in front of a half-finished pint, wearing a deep blue sweatshirt and rolled up jeans and sneakers instead of his customary sandals. He still bleached his hair, yes, but there was a lot more of it—it was twisted into a thick bun at his nape, currents of dark brown from his under-layer of hair twisted through that ugly, garish blonde and held back from his face by a thin, black headband. He looked tanned and tired, but not haggard. He looked nice.

He spotted Tsukishima as he weaved through the bar and stood up when he approached.

“You _grew_ ,” he said, horrified. He had to tip his head back to look up at him.

“Only a few centimeters.”

“What are you, now?”

“191.”

“Jesus Christ.”

Tsukishima grinned down at him, a little meanly. “Nice to see you.”

“I bet. Sit,” he ordered. Tsukishima perched on the bar stool next to him, trying to find a way to tuck his knees under the bar without looking awkward. He hated being so tall sometimes, but at least he had grown into it more than he had when he was a teenager, when his legs always ached with growing pains and he was gawky and thin.

He waited for the bartender to notice him. Ukai wouldn’t _stop_ noticing him.

“What?”

“You look different,” he said warily.

“You haven’t seen me since I was seventeen, I’m _supposed_ to look different.”

“I know, it’s just—weird.” He sipped his beer. “You remember someone a certain way, and you know, of course, they’re changing, but until you see it you still implicitly think they’re the same.”

“I look that different?”

Ukai quietly assessed him. He had the same clipped blond hair and glasses but his jaw was more pronounced, his shoulders were wider, and he didn’t seem as stretched-out as he had as a teenager, someone young who had grown too fast. He’d filled out, to say nothing of his new height. He’d missed a spot under his jaw shaving. His lips were dry.

“Yeah.”

“Hm. Good.”

Ukai tried to hide his smile. “Smug brat.”

“I don’t think you’re allowed call me that now that I’m adult.”

“Brat is a state of mind.”

The bartender came by and Tsukishima ordered the same beer he always got. He tipped his head and looked at Ukai, wondering, faintly, what this must have looked like to outsiders, two men who couldn’t stop staring at each other.

“You look different too,” Tsukishima said. “Your hair is long.”

“Yeah.” Ukai shrugged and scratched his head. “I just stopped cutting it, I don’t know why. My parents hate it.”

“You don’t still live with your parents, do you?”

“No, but they hate it from afar.” He laughed. “They think I’m never gonna get a wife looking like this.”

“Yeah? How’s _that_ going?”

“Well, I’m on a date with some dumb kid I used to coach, so you tell me.”

Tsukishima raised his eyebrows. _“Date.”_

“Uh.” Embarrassment flickered over Ukai’s face. “I thought—don’t pretend like you didn’t hound me for years, if you actually _were_ joking this has gone—”

“If this is a date, you can start by buying my next beer,” Tsukishima said lightly, lifting his drink to his lips. “If I remember right, you owe me a half a fifth of whiskey’s worth.”

Ukai couldn’t even pretend to be mad. He sat forward on the bar and their elbows almost, almost touched. “Fair enough.”

 

They managed to not talk about volleyball, a mutual, unspoken decision. They caught up—Ukai had joined a boxing gym (“Better suited for being short and buff”) and Tsukishima actively avoided participating in any school activities (“Unless you count dating a guy on the basketball team”)—and Tsukishima talked about his classes, engineering, Tokyo and everything else he could think of, and it felt weirdly natural, or more-so than trying to find common ground with anyone in university, who just wanted to talk about girls or getting into grad school.

After a few beer they sat closer and leaned in, spoke softly, grinned more. Tsukishima hated that it felt good, but he wasn’t surprised; he had never gotten along with people his own age, too sour and humourless, but something about Ukai’s weird, happy-go-lucky cynicism and sardonic jokes put him at ease. It was nice, too, that he didn’t seem to mind this being a date. Their knees were touching under the bar, and neither one had moved theirs away.

Tsukishima had started to insist he buy Ukai’s drinks, but Ukai was buying his, and they were drinking the same thing so it was completely useless, and after a couple more they moved to a small booth at the back of the bar and sat on the same side of it instead of across from each other, thoroughly and pleasantly drunk.

Ukai lit a cigarette. To his surprise, so did Tsukishima.

“You _smoke?”_

“Yep.”

“Tell me that wasn’t my influence.”

“Don’t flatter yourself.” He twiddled his cigarette between his knuckles. “I didn’t have to worry about keeping fit for sports anymore, so why not?”

“You look like you’re keeping pretty fit.”

Tsukishima laughed, smoke pouring out his mouth. “Are you hitting on me?”

“Yeah. Did I need to get your permission first? Get ready, I’m doing it again: I didn’t think you’d, uh, _grow up_ so well. What the fuck.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t think you’d _age_ so well either.”

“Ouch.”

“It’s a compliment.”

“Funny way to show it.”

They both took a drink, and Tsukishima shifted closer. Ukai noticed. He had his back pressed to the wall and there was nowhere to go, not that he wanted to, but he felt like trapped prey. He kind of liked it.

“This is so fucking stupid,” he laughed. “It seems like you were sixteen _yesterday_ , I still remember you being all gangly and whatever—I can’t imagine what you would have seen in me, I must have looked a billion years old.”

“You were a cool older guy who smoked, what did _I_ know? I’m surprised I wasn’t fighting half the team for you.”

Ukai laughed at the thought. “Would you have?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“What about now?”

“Now?” He leered, leaning in. His eyes shone gold in the low light of the bar. “There _is_ no team. And you aren’t my coach. We’re just two guys in a bar, who happen to know each other.” He paused, then added, “ _Kei-shin_ ,” in a sing-songy voice.

Part of Ukai wanted to vault over the table and run. A bigger part of him wanted to kiss Tsukishima until he stopped that insufferably smug grin, wanted to reduce him to a smouldering pile of rubble, and that’s the part that won. He slapped him on both cheeks, grabbed his face, and pulled him into a kiss that was mostly teeth because Tsukishima was laughing at him. At first, he didn’t think he was going to kiss back at all, but he tipped his head, fisted hands in the front of Ukai’s sweatshirt and dragged him closer across the bench they sat on, heedless of the bar’s other patrons. His mouth was warm and wet and he made a soft sound in the back of his throat that was almost lost in the din of their surroundings.

Ukai forced him back and butted their heads together, his hands still on his face. He could feel the cool edge of his glasses against his nose, feel him breathe on his mouth.

“I’m gonna regret this,” he whispered, feeling drunker than he had a moment ago, reeling, trying to stay in control.

“Only one way to find out,” Tsukishima said lowly, twisting his hands in his sweater, feeling the heat of his chest beneath. “Let’s get out of here.”

 

They stumbled back to Tsukishima’s apartment and smashed a lamp trying to get to the bed in the dark. Both were too drunk to be articulate or remember specifics but there were fistfuls of shirts yanked over heads, hands grabbing, nails digging, sucking, biting, wet breaths. Ukai hadn’t been with someone Tsukishima’s age since he _was_ Tsukishima’s age and it was unnerving and a little frightening and he wasn’t sure if it was unbridled youth or just _Tsukki_ that was like that, violent and demanding and _loud_ , God, all teeth and nails and spit and stamina. But there were also heels digging into the backs of his thighs, sweat shining in the pit of his throat, and his hair yanked out of its tie and falling in his eyes and Tsukishima holding it back, kissing him again and again and again. He tried not to think about those parts.

 

Ukai didn’t bolt in the morning but woke up tucked against Tsukishima’s back, incredibly disoriented, and momentarily forgot where he was. Tsukishima was already awake and rolled over and squinted up at him without his glasses, saying nothing. He had a red mark at the base of his throat and Ukai was beyond embarrassed.

“Morning.”

“Morning.” He reached a blind hand out to his nightstand and slapped around for his glasses, found them, and slipped them on. He seemed surprised to find Ukai nude, and jabbed his finger into a mark on his chest. “Sorry.”

“No, you’re not.”

Tsukishima rubbed his face to hide his smile. “Nope.”

Ukai sat up and shuffled to the edge of the bed, trying to smooth his hair down. He couldn’t find his hair tie and felt weird having it loose when there was anyone around to see. It almost reached his shoulders. “I feel like shit.”

“Same.”

“I’ve gotta catch the train. I’m supposed to work today.”

“Okay.”

Part of him was worried Tsukishima would turn sad and clingy, the way young people were supposed to, but he looked ready to go back to sleep, content like a giant blond cat. If there was anyone he _didn’t_ have to worry about that with, it had to be Tsukishima. It didn’t even seem like he _liked_ him.

He pulled on his jeans and sweater and drank a glass of water in Tsukishima’s small, low-ceilinged kitchen and tried to get the room to stop spinning. He couldn’t remember how much he’d drank. He remembered ... other things. Tongue. Shouts. Etcetera. He wound his hair up in a rubber band he found in a junk drawer and tried not to think about it.

He would have been mortified if Tsukishima kissed him at the door, but it was nice enough that he got out of bed to walk him out. Ukai still wasn’t used to looking so high up at him. He stood outside and Tsukishima stood on the threshold with one hand on the door, still half naked.

“I’ll, uh—call you?” Ukai offered. Tsukishima laughed at him and shut the door in his face.

 

vii.

Ukai texted him a few weeks later:

_hey im supposed to go to tokyo soon to pick some stuff up for the shop if you’re free_

So they met up, at a different bar this time, and got through exactly one beer each before rushing back to Tsukishima’s to be alone. This time, Ukai stayed for breakfast.

The next month, it was _hey im going to be in tokyo getting my hair done do you want to hang out_ and instead of going out, they stocked up at the liquor store and stayed in Tsukishima’s apartment watching movies, trying not to touch each other, and getting more modestly drunk. They went out for breakfast the next morning and walked around the city, and Ukai missed the last train so he stayed another night.

By the end of the season, they’d seen each other a dozen times, usually for a couple nights at a time, and both of them were startled and appalled to discover (separately and secretly) that they were sort of dating.

 

viii.

In the fall, they received emails from Daichi about a team reunion get-together in Miyagi one weekend and Tsukishima immediately texted Ukai, who was beyond reluctant to go, but some sappy part of him that wanted to see the old Karasuno team again made him cave. He refused to show up _with_ Tsukishima; they hadn’t specifically discussed what, if anything, they would tell the others because that would mean formally recognizing that there was something to tell, which they still hadn’t talked about.

It was a cool evening just before rain, and the air smelled like ozone. Tsukishima could see the group standing outside the restaurant as he approached and slipped his headphones down off his ears. Ukai was already there and standing with Daichi, laughing about something, wearing a big grey sweatshirt that Tsukishima reluctantly recognized. Kageyama was there with Hinata—whose head reached his nose, so one or both of them had grown—and Tanaka and Suga and Noya, who couldn’t have been more than 165cm tall.

When Ukai looked up at him, unabashedly horrified, he gave him a big, mean grin.

“Tsukki!” Hinata bubbled. “You actually came!”

“Did you get _taller_?” Tanaka moaned.

“Yep!” he said, uncharacteristically brightly, which was shocking enough on its own. He made a beeline for Ukai, who took his cigarette out of his mouth and started to back up.

“Don’t do this,” he tried, quietly, trying to plead with the golden eyes boring into his.

“Too late!” he chirped. He leaned down, grabbed his chin, and kissed him in front of everyone, and at that point, Ukai had no reason to fight. Noya and Hinata screamed. When Tsukishima leaned back, he snagged Ukai’s hand and slid a bunch of hair ties from his own wrist onto his. “Stop leaving these at my place. You’re like a shedding cat.”

Ukai’s ears went red and he squeezed his eyes shut as tightly as he could, like maybe that would help block out the peals of laughter from Tanaka and Noya and Hinata; everyone else was dumbstruck or politely sniggering.

“I’m going to murder you.”

Tsukishima settled next to him, shoulder to shoulder, smirking placidly. “I would _love_ to see you try.”

“Guys, be nice,” Daichi tried, but Tanaka was just screaming now, _I can’t believe this!!!!!! I can’t fucking believe this shit!!!!_ so he turned to Ukai and Tsukishima. “How long has, uh, _this_ been—”

“It’s not,” Ukai said through his teeth.

Suga was trying so hard not to laugh. “It clearly _is_.”

“Tsukki,” Noya said, gasping for air as he plastered himself to Tsukishima’s back. “Please, please tell me you were banging in high school. I need this.”

“We were _not!”_ Ukai roared, which just made them laugh harder.

“I thought you were joking about liking him,” Kageyama said, looking between the two of them. “When you told us.”

Ukai snorted and Tsukishima elbowed him in the ribs.

“I thought I was joking too.” He shrugged. “But look at me now.”

“Hey, guys!” Asahi came through the parking lot. “It’s so good to—what’s so funny?”

Noya leapt up and yelled _“Oh my God Asahi-san Coach Ukai and Tsukki are dating I can’t believe this!!!!”_

At the same time, Tsukishima said “No,” and Ukai said, “So?”

And then everyone shut up.

“Uh,” Suga cut in, looking from Ukai to Tsukishima, who were staring at each other with looks that were hard to place, and certainly not the drippy love-sick gazes of the newly fond. “We’ve got a reservation, we should get inside.”

“Right!” Daichi tried to herd everyone away. “Let’s go, the others will be here soon.”

“Right,” Tsukishima said slowly, and narrowed his eyes at Ukai, who sucked his teeth. They hung back as everyone filed through the restaurant doors. “Is there something you’d like to share with the class?”

“We’re not talking about this.”

“Are you sure? Because you sound like you want to talk about something.”

“No.”

“Right.” He chuckled and knocked him in the shoulder as they stepped inside. “You’re supposed to be the grown-up here.”

“I’m not the one who loves to _publicly humiliate_ people like a goddamn kid. Real mature.”

“You loved it.”

Ukai scoffed but, as they were led to their table he touched the inside of Tsukishima’s arm and muttered, “Sure.”

 


End file.
